The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-16
Nashville American.

The energetic and successful move
ment which is being made for the devel-
opment of Southern industrial enter
prises and resources shows that the
South is not lacking in those qualities of
energy, enterprise and prOgressiveness
which our New England cousins have
heretofore claimed as exclusively their
own. We have never learned to listen
with patience to the stereotyped homilies
upon the needs OF the South which have
been the sum total of Eastern contrib
utions to the development of this section.
We have heard often that the South
could never attain fair degree of pros
perity until a liberal diffusion of North
ern brains and energy had driven out
Southern lethargy. iaziness and igno-
rance, and that the vast undeveloped
wealth of this section would have to lie
dead and improbable until New Eng
land enterprise should see fit TO touch 1t
into active life. In the meantime North
ern brains and energy did not diffuse
themselves to any great extent, and
Southern laziness, ignorance and pow.
erty was left to work out the problem of
development az best they might.
The immense advantages offered to
capital and enterprise in the South, the
golden opportunities for profitable inves-
ment here afforded were proclaimed to
deaf and unheeding ears. Northern
cap talists doubtless felt that these adj
vantages and opportunities had nothing
else to do but await their pleasure to
come and appropriate them. There was
also q very prevalent idea at the North
that the South WAS peopled with I'M
tanned savages, perennially on the war
path, and that the Northern man who
came among them took his life in his
hapda Wo ha Al holiayoA and
conteuded that the first step toward the
development of our immense resources
would have to come from the South, and
that our reliance must be in our own
pluck, push and enterprise and not in TIN ,
diffusion of the Northern variety of
those estimable and necessary qualities.
Time has justified this belief. The
prevailing activity in the coal and iron
regions of the South is distinctisely q
Southern movement, backed and pushed
by the brains and money Of Southern
men. The promoters Of the enterprises
which are now attracting attention from
all parts Of the country have none of the
Northern diffusion, which was supposed
to be a sine qua non to any degree of
success in any business enterprise. They
are men who were born and raise d in
the South, received their training and
education in the South and made the
money which they have invested in these
enterprises in the South. Many of then
were raised up under the old slave-hold
ing regime, and belonged themselves Il
that much maligned class. the slave
holding planters of ante beiitm days
Many of them were impoverished and
left penniless by the war, and hav,
fought their way up from poverty will
an energy and patience and fortitude al
the more remarkable, and all the NOR,
commendable, in men who were raiset
in luxury and never taught to rely upci
their own exertions, until by a sharp re
verse of fortune they were suddenl,
thrown from wealth to poverty.
1t is something for which every South
ern man should feel proud. that tn
South's recovery from the waste an,
desolation of war and her rapid progress
toward u greater prosperity 10 the frui
of her almost unaiied efforts. That thi
industrial development has not com
sooner is due not to lack of energy anG
enterprise. but to the lack Of capital anG
the poverty caused by the war. And "
should have preferred to postpone tn
day of its coming for many years. rathe
than the South should owe her triumph
over adversely to any other than he
own sons.